When Prasanna Hettiarachchi and Novalyn Ogalino took over the cute corner-stop café Lunch Box at Bloor and Keele, they decided to really make it their own.
Today, the Lunch Box continues to offer the same melted, open-faced sandwiches (regular or gluten-free) the café has always been known for. However, Prasanna and Novalyn have expanded the daily soup selection, with four savoury made-from-scratch varieties available at all times. "We try to add as little salt as possible, no preservatives, and no commercial soup stock," Prasanna asserts.
The daily menu at Lunch Box features traditional soup offerings, like chicken noodle and chili, but Prasanna and Novalyn also like to create their own concoctions. The popular eggplant soup tastes exactly like eggplant with a smallish amount of salt added to enhance the flavour without overpowering it. The texture is smooth with just enough seeds and pulp to recognize the vegetable purée, and the gentle hint of onion and garlic allows the main ingredient to stand on it’s own. Flour is never used as a thickener, both in deference to soup-lovers who require gluten-free cooking and, more importantly, in the name of good taste.
"A lot of our clients require gluten-free, and so we try to make that as big a part of our cooking as possible," Novalyn says. "All of our soups are gluten-free."
